Top 10 Things to Remember for 2023, Quarterblechs! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 3/2

What's up, everybody. Today is one of my favorite episodes of the off season. We're covering 10 things to remember for 20, 23. Things you need to look back on. It's not like three things or five things or seven. We did 10 of them. We put in some work today. You're going to love them. Don't miss a minute. Leave a comment. Enjoy. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in. Annie Mike and Jason, the fantasy footballers, Thursday, March 2nd, which reminds me that tomorrow's March 3rd, which reminds me that Mike has a birthday. Oh. And the moments are ticking away of your youth is just... You've reminded me of something and I didn't have to bring it up, but I'll be a man about it. I was, I had full intentions of...

it's 40 time during the intro and just totally forgot. Totally forgot. No, I didn't hold it back. I just, I was looking something else up. I totally forgot about it, but I'm letting people know you can go back and play it and in your head just say, it's 40s. I mean, it makes sense that you would be forgetting it. Yes, due to the air. And it works out because people about to run 40s on the weekend. Yeah. I see. Combine time. Yeah. Well, uh, almost happy birthday, Mike. And people be drinking 40s. So it works in so many different ways. So that's going on. It's 5 o'clock somewhere. And, uh, I would be. It's 40 time. I'd be neglecting. Can we go to the wide camera here? I've been neglecting my duty as a host if I didn't point out Jason's giant cup. We're doing. Yeah.

Yes. I'm just trying to hydrate, my man. Drink a lot of water. Well, Mike brought it up when we were recording the spitballers podcast, and it was entertaining. So I felt like, I mean, it's, it's a huge cup. He's got a cup that has, uh, what is that? Like a gallon? It's, it's a quarter gallon cup. Um, and I poured a, a normal can, uh, like a soda can size in here. And it's, it's, it's, Pretty much empty. The cup is empty. It reminds me of the, you guys remember the BK commercial where he like he couldn't hold the burgers because he had the tiny hands. Oh, and so Jason now. The cup makes your hands look like real small. Jason's working on those, look at those tiny hands. He's working on the very good audio that we're putting out there on the podcast. It's just a tease to go to YouTube.com. Brooks, do you like all the cup talk that's we've been having on the podcast? We need more of it. More cup talk.

And are we, uh, we're not announcing the winner of the UDK award yet, or the listener league spot. Not today. Next episode. Next episode. Okay. So thanks to everybody that jumped in, Ultimate draft kit.com with the chance to win the listener league spot. You can still jump in if you want access to the dynasty pass right now with the UDK Plus. And we said the combine is happening this weekend. That means that a another round of updates will be coming in very soon. Yeah, very excited about that. Let's jump into the news. News and notes from around the league. Well, the defense is doing work Thursday, Friday at the Combine, the NFL Combine happening this weekend. Quarterbacks, wide receivers, tight-ins on Saturday, running backs, offensive linemen on Sunday. So, yeah, it's 40 time. What do you guys look for from Combine Weekend as it pertains to fantasy?

As it pertains to fantasy, there's a few things. I'm probably the most important thing. It's not as fun, but as it pertains to fantasy is weight. I care a lot about the weight of certain wide receivers. We're going to talk about that a little bit today. I care a lot about the weight of running backs. We can discuss that as well. I mean, if you go back through the top 20 fantasy football finishers at the running back position, they're all. 200 pounds or heavier last year. I believe Austin Eckler was the only one at 200. Most all of them are 215, 220. So the weight matters. I mean, these body types, there's a reason that they work in the NFL. And the nice thing is as the NFL is changing and adapting and evolving, we change our numbers. Yeah. And it's a big show today. We got the 10 Things to Remember episode. So we're going to be breaking down.

Some insights, some things we want you to hold on to heading into the upcoming fantasy football season. A lot has changed over the years, and there are things that we need to keep in mind. So a couple bits of news before we get into those 10 things to remember. The bucks planning to cut Lenny, Leonard Fournett, the dump truck himself. He's going to get dumped. Yeah. It's getting dumped like a truck. Their GM was kind enough to come out and say he's still got a lot in the tank. He's only 28. He'll do great elsewhere. I mean, that is the most fantasy football thing for a GM to say because when I'm trying to trade a player away, where all the fantasy players are great at saying, listen, this player's great. This player's amazing, awesome. So good on your team. Yeah, I know. He's got a lot left. He's only 28. Sir.

We know the numbers. We know the age that running back starts to tail off. They also are cutting their left tackle. Yeah, Donovan Smith is. They've been up against the cap. So these two moves are, they are not players who are bad outright. Leonard Fournett still has some to give. Donovan Smith had a down year. But he'll get a good job. It's just these were expensive players they couldn't afford. Kenny Galladay. We'll be released by the Giants on the first day of the league year, March 15th. The million dollar catch man. Do you think he said, finally? What took him so long? How much money did they pay him in total? Almost a million dollars per catch. Wow. I don't have the exact numbers in front of me. I'll go look up his stats and I can tell you how much money he made. Wow. Yeah, it didn't work.

So let's see. So Kenny Galladay as a giant had, uh, let's see, 43 receptions. And I think he made just under 40. He was like 42 points something. Yeah, he had a $40 million guaranteed contract. 72 million for your contract is what he signed. That's unbelievable. And if you look at the, uh, that's a, that's about a big of a whiff as you could possibly have. I think, uh, friend of the show Warren Sharp tweeted the fact. that like the list of the 10 players that Dave Gettleman had signed a long-term deals. Hey, don't talk about me. And it's a, it's just a disaster. It's like you gave somebody a quest. And the quest was to burn the money for a franchise. And he unlocked the achievement. I mean, it was an embarrassing list of players that had been, yeah, thank you. That had been cut.

you know, quickly and money invested and released. Yeah. He was, was he the one that. Oh, yeah. The drafted Sequel number two. Oh, yeah. Yeah, he was, he was the one who did that. I believe, wasn't he also in, uh, Carolina with the Chris McCaffrey? I'll have to look at that one. Uh, but that's what you get for making fun of the analytics nerds, bro. You suck at your job. Okay. I mean, Mike, that was mean, spirited and so true. And I loved it. And it's really, that's what was necessary. I will tease the fact that Mike will speak to the Dave Gettleman issue later on in the show. Oh, I am? Yeah, you are. You're going to talk about something later that I think ties into the Dave Gettelman issue. Okay. But I'm going to leave it there. Okay. And then if you don't remember it by the time you're talking, I'll remind you that that's what it is. Excellent. I can't wait. The Falcons have released Marcus Mariotta.

Yep, that was, I mean, we knew that was coming. And then the Bengals director of player personnel came out and made a couple of comments. Yes. Comment one, since we've talked about it already, talked about whether or not Joe Mixing would be on the roster. His response was I don't know. Well, the big thing is you have to tie the two comments together because it was Duke Tobin was asked about trading T. Higgins because that has spiraled out of control from like, I think just a brief. hint in someone's article and then it just the flames grew on Twitter and then a lot of people were talking about it because they will have to make a very serious T. Higgins decision eventually, but not this year. And it was, are you going to trade T. Higgins? And the quote was, quote, trading T. Higgins is not on my mind and also a quote of, it's a little ridiculous right now to talk about trading T. Higgins. He also told teams to get their own wide receiver. Compare that to is Joe Mixing going to be on the roster? I don't know.

Hmm. Yeah, well, that's not ridiculous. That is not a ridiculous question. So, you're like, that's a fair one and I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I think, I think the math, the mathematicians are the ones bringing the T. Higgins question forward because they know, they know that the Joe Burrow signing's going to happen and they know that there's, the Joe Mixing question is one of money, right? It's not that they wouldn't want Joe Mixing back for free. It's that how much do you want to spend on your running back? Higgins is entering his contract year. We'll talk more about him. I mean, he's either going to get a deal or he's going to be a highly paid free agent. Those are the two outcomes for T. Higgins. Any other news, Brooksie? Nothing. All right, we're moving on. Don't forget to remember these things. Speaking of gigantic hands.

Me in that clip. Yeah, there was a little video clip. I'm definitely palming a basketball with that hand. Yeah, no, you had tied the ribbon around your finger, which is one of the... With one hand, probably, because it's so enormous. When you were growing up, apparently that's the only way to remember stuff. Yeah, but you've ever done that? I mean, yes, when I was a child. For real? I've never even heard of this. Oh, yeah, yeah. Like, I'll still sometimes when there's... Will you do that? I don't tie a ribbon on, but, like, I'll put maybe a rubber band on my finger.

And so later on, when you're like, oh, yeah, you've forgotten some things over the years. You could have used a ribbon. I've forgotten to put the ribbon on my finger. I normally go with the sticky note in the most obvious, stupid place. I'll go sticky note on the wallet. Okay, on the wallet. Yeah, I'll stick them to like lights in the house or up high on like cabinets where my wife can't reach it if I'm reminding her of stuff. So it's just up there. So then, you know, a step stool has to be involved to get the note down. That's right. That's right. I do. This note's important. I use my height to put them in a place where it's just annoying. If the task is, if the note is gone and the task is not completely, you're like, mm-mm, you knew about it. That's right. That's right. That's some good work. All right. Ten things to remember, which is, you know, another way of saying some lessons we've learned over the last fantasy football season, things we've learned over the past few years. Some of these are trends that are changing.

I want to remind people, I guess I'm reminding them to remember. Yes. Bois. Rookies get run. Yep. Okay. The rookie running backs were another year into fantasy football and they continued to deliver last year. Kenneth Walker, Breece Hall, Tyler Algier, Damian Pierce, Isaiah Pacheco, Rashad White, James Cook, Brian Robinson Jr. Even though the rookies we were. kind of nervous about. Even rookies that were shot with a gun. Contributed last year, which, and they all had, I think the big case for me here is that there were bona fide, legitimate, reasonable, fair-minded reasons why they weren't going to deliver as rookies. All of them. From Rashad Penny being ahead of Kenneth Walker to, you know, the tandem in New York. How long would it take where you saw?

You know, Al Jare buried in the depth chart behind Cordarral, and the list goes on. Obviously, Antonio Gibson and being shot for Brian Robinson, yet still had a season of which fantasy value was produced as a rookie running back. And you had, once again, you know, Breast Hall, he didn't get to play a full season, but he was the RB 7 while he was playing. Damian Pierce finished in the top 24. Ken Walker in the top 24. This is an every year occurrence. So it's important that we as fantasy players. Remember that. You go back to 2012, you've had at least two rookie running backs in the top 24 at the end of every year. It's going to happen again. The running back class is strong. Teams are, you know, they're making the Joe Mixing decision right now in Cincinnati. And you have, we have a great article. I should have mentioned it at the top. A really, really good free agency article for Matthew Betts, Kyle Borgonni, up on the website, 100 questions about free agency. 100.

You didn't say that wrong. 100. 100. It's over a million words, right? 10 million words? I don't remember. You have the real number, Kyle? It's over 11,000, but we did it as service. It only takes 54 minutes to read. I was going to say that Stephen King read through it and he's like, fellas. Fellas. This is long. But one of the first ones, so you don't have to read 54 minutes to get to it, was just highlighting that the free agency class, there's some big names out there at running back, right? Yes. Sequin Barclay's out there. Tony Pollard's out there. You have David Montgomery, a bunch of starters, I would say. And yet you know that these teams are making that mathematical decision. You can draft some of these running backs. They're going to be put in positions to succeed. Running backs aren't getting taken as high-end drafts, which means they're going to better teams. And so let's remember this year that rookies get run. Once again, the path may not seem clear in August.

But it will be happening. Rookies will be contributing at the running back position, especially as the season goes on. Be willing to draft and hold. Be willing to take the leap. It's going to work out if you pick the right ones. And that question, which we can't answer right now, but it's just it's fun to speculate. That turns into at what point in the first round do you draft Bejohn Robinson in a redraft? Because he will go. If he is selected in the first run of the NFL draft, Bejohn will go in the first of your fantasy football redraft. I could tell you I've done several best ball drafts already this offseason. Yeah, where's it going? He is. Number 10. Sorry, I forgot that at the top of the drop. I was just throwing that in there. Also, he could go at number 10. He could, but he has been consistently the number three running back off the board. It goes like.

It's insane. So what is it? What's it going? Yeah, in best ball. In best ball. Oh, in best ball. So what's it going right now? McCaffrey, Jonathan Taylor, Bejohn. You said that's ridiculous? I mean, that's just, look, I love. I love Bejon. Oh, because it's too high. Yeah. I thought you were saying it the opposite based on your love of Bejon. I mean, I love him. How is this guy not the number one off the board? I absolutely love him, but that is very high. Well, yeah, because you are very likely. exchanging some early season success, right? For those other two players. Maybe. It's a maybe. There's definitely the chance he gets drafted and you know going in that it's just going to be him every single week. But the probability is that you might have a little bit of time where you're not getting week one type of McCaffrey numbers and stuff like that. He also has to go to a place that's going to throw the running back to the degree that McCaffrey can produce.

Yeah, no, agreed. It's hard to draft him number three, not knowing his landing spot. If Tennessee decides to grab him and stash him behind Derek Henry, you're going to be really sad he's the number three drafted. I will say that with all of the potential downsides or risks, people will want to do it as high as possible. Yeah, I mean, because it's fun. Well, and you had, you had Sequin, you had Zeke, like these guys who are drafted in the first rounds. Let me say a sentence for you. Bejan Robinson could be. The greatest running back in the history of the national football league. He could be. You're not wrong. That's why he'll be drafted higher than maybe he deserves. Number nine. All right. Number nine. This is more of a philosophical thing because there is a mental to be. Yeah. There is an element of that when it comes to fantasy football. And it is don't be afraid of your own ideas because the NFL gets things wrong all.

The time. And there it is. I'm back. There's your David Gattelman. Don't talk about me. I'm not even working anymore. I was right in my own way. But like Kenny Gawaday just got cut after making nearly $1 million a reception. The Denver Broncos sold their souls for Russell Wilson. Chase Edmonds got the first free agent running back contract of last year's free agency period. The Patriots just a couple years ago dumped a ton of cash right into Hunter Henry and John News Smith. Look at that production. And Nelson Aguilar. And Nelson Aguilar. Alan Robinson. People make mistakes. Alan Robinson, which I don't know if everybody followed this.

story of the breadcrumbs, which was very interesting. I can't remember. I think maybe. Was it the athletic? Norris, maybe Norris pointed out. I can't recall. But the story goes, the Eagles were the front runners for Alan Robinson. They had the cash ready for him. They thought he could still be that guy. And then it took a last minute call from Sean McVeigh, Cooper Cup, and company to, and they swayed Alan Robinson. They gave him a huge amount of money. He's a Los Angeles ram. We all know how that worked out, but just like looking at the situation of, if Alan Robinson goes to Philadelphia, there's no way they trade their number one pick for AJ Brown, give him that huge contract extension. Maybe they win the Super Bowl. Maybe they don't, but I mean, AJ Brown was a huge part of that. Anyways, so the Eagles were super glad that.

The Rams got that wrong. Zach Wilson over Justin Fields right now looks terrible. Jalen Rager drafted over Justin Jefferson. The list goes on and on and on. And I'm bringing this up simply not to shield myself when I make my bad decisions because the NFL does it wrong all the time. But it's that's just one of your inputs. The way that the NFL is telling us they believe about these players, it's just one thing. It's okay. It is okay to have a completely differing opinion. from what the NFL is telling you about fantasy football players. And we all need to be open to these things. We need to be open that perhaps we are wrong. And I believe we've done a pretty good job at trying to adjust our opinions on this show. Like we differ all the time. I was locked in. I thought the Broncos. I thought Russ still had it. I thought Hackett could get could put it together for the Denver Broncos. I thought they were going to be.

Fantastic. The combination of that defense, get a really good offense in there. I thought that'd be great. Andy was very much on the other side. I think you took the under on their win total before the season even started. And I was like, what a dummy. I was the dummy. And I clearly got that one wrong. But the NFL gets things wrong. You will get things wrong. But don't let the NFL bully you into what your opinion should be about a player. Can I add an exclamation part? Absolutely. Also, don't let. Fantasy analysts bully you because we try not to be that way on the show. We share our opinions with reason and with loud voices and we disagree and we agree. But what happens sometimes in the extended fantasy community and the Twitter sphere in general is that there is an attitude that you can't make a decision that differs from consensus or believes that, I don't know, Breece Hall is better than Najee Harris or something. You know, there are takes that you might have.

going into the year and if you're convicted about them and you're willing to go down with that ship or rise in glory, don't be afraid to make that move whether the NFL or an analyst is telling you that it's not highly probable because the improbable happens every year positively and negatively and it's a good reminder that, you know, we're trying to equip you to build your own list. We're trying to equip you to make your own decisions and disagree with us. Feel free. Are you going to hit that number? Yeah, I'm going to hit that number. I'm going to do that for you, Jason. Thank you. Number eight. Oh, the number eight thing. Now you can share your knowledge that I want to remember from this last season is that elite wide receivers changing teams. We had a long history of free agent wide receivers changing teams. Or just wide receivers changing teams in general. And pretty much sucking. And that, you know.

We've seen it. We saw it obviously with Kenny Galladay getting the massive contract going over and changing teams. But recent history, you know, you look back at what Stefan Diggs did when he changed teams and what he did for Josh Allen. But specifically this last year, you had three massive trades. And I think it is different when it is a trade versus free agency. When it is a trade, a team is investing a whole lot into these players. Because usually it's draft capital plus. a new contract. And so this last year, you had AJ Brown, you had Tyree Kill, you had Devante Adams, all shift teams as elite wide receivers. And those teams are three of the top four teams in the biggest changes of wide receiver target share. So when they went and acquired these players, they said,

I'm doing this because I want to be a pass first team. I want to throw the ball to you. We value you. You've got a couple of run first teams right now that are in the market for a wide receiver. And this is not a great free agent wide receiver class. This is not an elite wide receiver rookie class where I think there's just a bunch of impact guys year one. So the trade market is going to be here for teams like the Chicago Bears. the Baltimore Ravens to go and get one of these guys. Bears already traded for their elite wide receiver. Oh, that's right. They got, uh, they got Chase. Yeah, they got Chase. They got Chase on the case. Um, you, and, and you watched these elite wide receivers have unbelievable years. A.J. Brown 101 receptions. His previous career high was 76. Tyreek Hill highest targets per route run of his entire career. He led the NFL. Devante Adams.

Most contested catches. It's contaches, actually. Contaches. Most contaches. The highest average depth of target of his career. So this coming season, there's a lot of names that have been rumored. You know, we talk about T. Higgins. Maybe he'll get traded. That's too early to talk about. DeAndre Hopkins seems almost inevitable that he gets traded. You could see a situation where a team with cap troubles like the Buccaneers. getting something for Mike Evans. There will be a couple of big name wide receivers traded. And if they're elite, I'm going to be in on them this coming year because we've seen these NFL teams say, I'm committed to you with this transaction. We already know your elite. And so I'm going to be doubling down on that. I think part of that is the financial commitment it takes for an elite wide receiver in a contract. It's massive. That's one of the biggest commitments you can make. We're not talking about the running back.

one year, two year deals. We're talking about like a team almost having to build around you and, you know, the value of the past first team. I was going to say, I'll fill it in. Jason took some action on, on this specific tip. He was in a best ball draft yesterday the day before and it was. Is he ever not though? Yeah, that part is true. But this is just, he's, he's in there, man. He's putting the cash on the line. And I think it was round three. And he's, Mike, who would you draft in a best ball? DeAndre Hopkins or Chris Olave. It's like, man, that's a very interesting situation. And he went to Hopkins? And I, after working through everything, like, we love Chris Olave. I think second year wide receiver. These are players that you want to target. You have no idea what team DeAndre Hopkins is going to be on. But it was, no, when Hopkins was playing last year, he was still elite. If he gets traded.

Somebody wants him and they're going to feed him a bunch of targets. And I narrowly moved it over. I was like, I think I'd go Hopkins there. And he said, that's where I lean and then click the button. You clicked the button. I did. Wow. I hopped on it. It's a good reminder. Let's take a quick break. We'll come back with some more. One thing we would never do on this show is provide various amounts of insight without letting you know what number we're on. Number seven. And now we're here. We're very organized. Now we're here. All right, I'm going to call this Winners win. That's what they do. Winners win. I'm very excited about this one because it was an insight I had no idea about until I glanced and investigated and said, wow, that is kind of different than I expected. We're talking about wide receivers. In years past, I've brought up the fact that I target running backs on winning teams. It was something I.

split the difference between two players. I'm going to pick the team that I think projects to make the playoffs to be successful. But I wanted to look at the wide receiver production this year. And when I did, I noticed that there were just five of the top 20 fantasy wide receivers that were on teams with losing records. So that's a huge number, 75% on winning teams. Two of those five on a losing record team actually made the playoffs. Chris Godwin and Mike Evans. So you really have... a direct correlation to these victorious teams and wide receivers that are in the top 20. Then we look back at 2021's data and there you go. Over the last two years, 75% of all top 20 wide receivers have come from teams with winning records. So when you are sitting there, I wanted to look back at last year's ADP and think about some decisions you might have been making between a couple of players that if you had had the philosophy of remembering that